


falling out of feeling

by Ravenesta



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Homophobic Language, M/M, Phase Five (Gorillaz), Phone Calls, Prison, unconscionably sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 23:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19037650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenesta/pseuds/Ravenesta
Summary: 2D leaves for Los Angeles. Murdoc still calls, of course. He can kick and scream and bitch and whine all he wants, but he'll always call.





	falling out of feeling

It’s an unbearable number of minutes before 2D finally stops pretending to drink the shite canteen coffee and looks him in the eyes.

“How’s the place treating you, then?” 

A neutral question, as far as things go. Or, it would be, if Murdoc were anywhere other than here.

“How do you  _ think,  _ faceache?” he spits, but it comes out weaker than he would’ve liked, bitterness giving way to exhaustion. 2D flinches back nonetheless, wincing as his eyes trace the steady line of reddish bruises up Murdoc’s jaw and into his hairline. Murdoc sneers, juts his jaw out, puts on a big old show of refusing to be ashamed. They’re being watched, after all, by the officers and the huge fuckoff sods who roughed him up, and their nice wives and mumsies come to see them, all of them gawking at the black-eyed bright blue poofter in the fucking patterned floral shirt who’s come to see Murdoc Niccals. Beyond that, though, beyond his cred, his inside  _ rep, _ he’s putting it on for 2D, like he always does, the fuckoff-I-don’t-need-you strop he always throws before he crawls back every single time.

Trust 2D to toss it right back at him.

“Listen, Muds,” he starts abruptly, and Murdoc’s eyes snap up to him, already put on-edge by the tone. He’d thought 2D’s discomfort was about the locale, the sterile, grey visitation centre of Wormwood Scrubs pressing down around him, but Murdoc  _ knows  _ that tone, and a  _ we need to talk  _ by any other name still tastes as fucking sour.

“Muds,” he starts again, learning forward over the low plastic table, “my head’s not on straight right now, yeah?”

Murdoc bites back a  _ when is it ever?,  _ in favour of scowling in petulant silence.

2D’s voice takes on a desperate edge. “My head’s not on straight, and, look, Noodle’s got this mate, right? A bloke named Ace, and he’s a bit of a bassist I guess, has this nice place in L.A., and he’s invited me and Noods and Russ to maybe hang out and jam with him for a bit. And, Muds, I think I might take him up on it.”

Well.

At least he has the decency to look guilty about it.

“So that’s how it fucking is, then.”

“No, Murdoc,” 2D says, pleading, but Murdoc’s already pushing his chair back, ready to get the fuck out of here. His cell, the rec yard, even the communal fucking showers would be a welcome reprieve from  _ this.  _

2D stands as well, leans over and grabs Murdoc’s wrist before he can react. “Look, I know you’re angry and you probably won’t cool down for a while, but I’m leaving you my phone number, yeah? And just, call me Muds, okay? Whenever. And if I don’t answer, I’ll call you back, quick as anything, okay?”

Murdoc blinks once, then tugs his hand away sharply, out of 2D’s grip. “And why the  _ fuck  _ would I ever want to call  _ you?”  _

2D sighs, all the fight going out of him. The way he’s built, he looks like a marionette cut from its strings, all jutting bones and awkward angles. “At least take this,” he says, voice resigned. He rummages in his jean pockets, and after a moment, produces a crumpled tenner, dropping it on the table between them. He must’ve brought it for the canteen, Murdoc supposes. 

He sneers. “What, and get hep A from the fucking beans on toast? I’ll pass, thanks.” Still, he pockets the cash, knows it could do him some good.

“Call me,” 2D repeats dully.

Murdoc leaves.

* * *

 

**HMP WORMWOOD SCRUBS**

**INMATE PHONE CALL TRANSCRIPT**  
**OUTGOING:**  
**INMATE ID:** #24602      **INMATE NAME:** MURDOC NICCALS

**RECEIVING:**  
STUART POT (LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)

* * *

 

**STUART POT:** You called! Are you… Uh, are you alright, Muds? Not dying or anything, yeah?

**MURDOC NICCALS:** Me? I’m great, just fucking dandy, Dents, I’m just in  _ fucking prison.  _

**SP:** Oi, don’t get snippy mate, you called me!

**MN:** Well. Had to make sure you were still kicking, didn’t I? Make sure this Ace bugger didn’t turn out to be some evil fucking serial killer out to murder my whole band, eh?

**SP:** [LAUGHS] He’s not evil, Muds. Just a bit, er. Thick.

**MN:** I’m sorry, are you fucking joking?  _ You’re  _ calling someone else  _ thick?  _ This bloke must be a fucking vegetable!

**SP:** Oh, sod off. He’s just, you know, a bit odd, innit? We were doing some shoots for a music video on Venice Beach, and we wanted a shot of him playing basketball with the locals, because he’s a bit of a local, right? Being American, and that. But one of these kids throws him the ball, and he catches it, and takes out a flipping flick knife and  _ pops  _ the bloody thing!

**MN:** [LAUGHS]

**SP:** It ain’t funny, Muds, they were right angry!

**MN:** Well that’s what you get, isn’t it? Filming a music video on Venice flaming Beach, for chrissakes. What’s it even about?

**SP:** Not  _ about  _ much, I guess. It’s a, a happy song I guess, so I just roller skated around for a bit, and we got some shots of all the folk milling about, and it was pretty good up until Ace pulled that shit. And Russel tripped me up, but I don’t know that he meant to.

**MN:** _ Rollerskating?  _ 2D, what the  _ fuck  _ are you doing to my band?

**SP:** Just messing about, Muds. I think it’s turning out alright, so far, we’re cleaning up the audio for the rest of the album, and Jaime’s said he might wanna do these uh, things, these, visualizers for some of the songs, yeah? And it’s– 

**MN:** Are you enjoying this? Getting to fucking gloat about replacing me in  _ my _ own band, writing your hippie dippie alt-pop shit with some fucking Californian bassist, putting out a whole fucking  _ album  _ without me in  _ my fucking band–  _

**SP:** But it’s  _ my  _ album! It’s your band, Muds, of course it’s your band, but I’ve got to do this, right, and you can’t take it like that, like we don’t want you back, ‘cos it’s not the same doing this without you. Ace is thick, Muds, seriously,  _ musically  _ thick, he just plays whatever me and Noodle tell him to, never adds anything himself. Which is alright for this I guess, ‘cos it’s my songs and I know what they’re supposed to sound like, but I keep hearing you in my head going, “And that’s where the synth oughta stop, you always want your stupid little midi solos, Dents–”

**MN:** [LAUGHS]

**SP:** Sod off, stop laughing! You sound just like that, you do, you always fucking barge in and say every song ought to go exactly your way, and we’d stay up half the night tweaking one chord progression over and over ‘cos we knew it didn’t sound right and I can’t do that without you, Muds, so quit saying I want rid of you, alright? I can’t keep doing this without you.

**MN:** Then  _ don’t.  _ Just fucking wait until I find a way out of here– 

**SP:** I can’t, Murdoc. Not with these, yeah? I’m sorry.

**[CALL END]**

* * *

 

**SP:** Do you ever miss Kong?

**MN:** No.

**SP:** Go on. Not even a little bit?

**MN:** No! Why would I miss that infested, stinking pit of garbage?

**SP:** Sorry, are we talking about Kong or Plastic Beach?

**MN:** Bugger off. At least Plastic Beach wasn’t in fucking  _ Essex.  _

**SP:** [Singing]  _ The only way is–  _

**MN:** Stop.  _ Stop! _ I could’ve gone the rest of my sad, miserable life without being reminded of fucking TOWIE. You really are a poof.

**SP:** Guilty. I miss Kong, though. Really, I do. I mean, not the smell, or that portal-thing you kept downstairs, or the bathrooms, or really anything about it, but… It was alright, the stuff we did in there, weren’t it?

**MN:** _ Alright?  _ D, it wasn’t just  _ alright,  _ it was fucking  _ revolutionary _ ! Changed the international music scene forever– 

**SP:** I miss when we’d order pizza in, and the Domino's delivery bloke always got lost on the way up, and ended up calling us all curled up in a ball crying ‘cause he saw a ghost or summink, and we had to go out and collect him.

**MN:** Ah, yeah. Think they blacklisted us eventually.

**SP:** And Noodle tearing through the place. Skateboarding up and down the hallways at midnight–

**MN:** –Screaming like a banshee in Japanese because we hadn’t been watching how much sugar she’d had, yeah. God, she were a great little sprogget, weren’t she?

**SP:** You know she’s seeing someone?

**MN:** _ What? _

**SP:** Yeah! Some bird named Buttercup, lives round here apparently.

**MN:** She’s too young to be dating! You’ve told her she’s not allowed to be dating, Dents, fucking tell her!

**SP:** She’s twenty-summink, Muds, I don’t think we’re allowed to tell her what to do anymore. If we ever were, really.

**MN:** Still! What if she gets hurt! What if this Buttercup bird breaks her heart! I don’t trust anyone named fucking  _ Buttercup,  _ D.

**SP:** Me neither, really. I wanted to, you know, stand on the porch with a shotgun and be all,  _ you have my daughter back by midnight young lady or there’ll be hell to pay,  _ like in the movies, right? ‘Cept the place we’re in don’t have a porch, and Noods never brings her round anyways. The only reason I even know she exists is ‘cos Ace kept running his mouth when he weren’t supposed to. She were right angry at him for that.

**MN:** [LAUGHS] Good for her.

**SP:** I do… I miss the people we were when we were doing music at Kong.

**MN:** We were terrible people, D.

**SP:** Still are. But at least it was fun. Least it was just us up on a hill and half the fucking world weren’t watching us and writing articles every time we got high on something. 

**MN:** D… 

**SP:** I think I hate L.A., Muds. Really, I do. I know I was the one who wanted to come here, but I think, once this album’s done, I need a break. Middle of nowhere, you know? Not like Plastic Beach, but, us, like… 

**MN:** Jamaica. 

**SP:** Yeah. Yeah.

**[CALL END]**

* * *

 

**HMP WORMWOOD SCRUBS**

**FORM BP-S383.058: INMATE PERSONAL PROPERTY RECORD**  
**NAME:** MURDOC NICCALS  
**ID:** 24602  
**TYPE OF PROPERTY:** COMPACT DISC  
**QUANTITY:** 1  
**DESCRIPTION:**

JEWEL CASE CONTAINING:  
-ONE COMPACT DISC (C-D) OF ALBUM TITLED “THE NOW NOW” BY “GORILLAZ”  
-HANDWRITTEN NOTE READING “YOU DON’T HAVE TO, BUT YOU SHOULD”

* * *

 

He looks tired. Probably not quite as haggard as Murdoc, one eye still bandaged over, half his face an inflamed, angry red, but still, he looks a bit like he walked off the plane high and half asleep and stumbled straight into the visitor centre. Hell, he might’ve.

He’s not making any pretenses about drinking the coffee, this time, but he’s got his skinny fingers wrapped around it, leeching warmth from the Styrofoam cup.

Murdoc blinks, winces, glances away. Doesn’t know how to start.

“I mean, do you get it now?” 2D asks, abrupt as ever. “Why I had to do it without you. I couldn’t just… I couldn’t let you play those songs, not like, not when they were for…” He trails off, scowls down into his cup. 

“I know,” Murdoc murmurs. “S’why…”

He shakes his head, forces himself to spit it out. 2D gave him  _ this,  _ the least he can fucking do is stop being a coward and finally return the favour. 

“S’why I couldn’t let you sing Plastic Beach alone.”   
  
2D looks up at him sharply, eyes wide and disarming. “What?”

“I brought in so many collaborators so you’d make a story with them. Not think about me, or the lyrics I wrote, or why. Couldn’t listen to you singing my words back at me all alone.”

All at once, 2D’s face goes slack and soft with understanding. Murdoc finds himself unable to look away, skin crawling with shame and fear and a thousand other things, but still staring right back at 2D. He’d always found his eyes a bit unnerving, glassy and blank, like squid ink. Opaque and reflective, and Murdoc’s always seen more of himself that he wants to, when 2D looks at him like that, like there’s not another thing in the world that could possibly keep his focus.

2D hums, low and crooning,  _ “I’ll wait to be forgiven, maybe I never will–” _

“Don’t,” Murdoc says softly, “Stu, stop.” 

Because of  _ course  _ he’d know, pick out the one that Murdoc can barely stand to think about. He was a showman, was 2D, and way back when they’d actually gotten Little Dragon to perform live with them, he’d sung to her full-throated, down on his knees pleading and bright and shining with sweat, had looked at her like nothing else existed– 

Like he was looking at Murdoc now. 

“We’re not good people,” Murdoc says, like he’s realizing it for the first time. He might be, in a way, because he can’t quite wrap his head around the kind of poetry they’ve been writing each other, like they’re the kind of people who  _ pine,  _ who love like that, who get to  _ have  _ that.

“That’s alright,” 2D says serenely. “I still try, sometimes. And I guess it’s never too late for you to start.”

“Cheeky shit,” Murdoc says, but he’s smiling, almost. “You’ll– Will you be there? When I get out of here?”

“‘Course, Muds.”

“Then I’ll start trying.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1) don't @ me i'm getting it out of my system  
> 2) have you ever seen [to binge live at la musicale?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPk9iHSQwvU) jesus christ, man.  
> 3) apparently my dad's unit is quarantined this week because one of the inmates working in the kitchens has hep a. fucking wild!


End file.
